New Year’s Resolutions

January 3, 2021 — Laura House

When I was growing up my family went all-out on New Year’s Eve. Not in the way you might think, donning extravagant attire and hosting parties, but all-out together as a family. The evening began with a traditional fondue dinner including steak, baked potatoes, salad, and all of the left-over Christmas sweets. Afterward, we gathered in the living room to document the year in our “Family Council” notebook. Reading these entries now brings laughter since the secretary was always a teenager who felt compelled to add side commentary. After we had reflected on the previous year, we’d open the envelopes containing last year’s resolutions, and hilarity usually ensued since we had long forgotten most of what we had written.

Finally, we’d snuggle into our sleeping bags that were spread out in front of the T.V. and we’d watch a riveting movie like “The Battle of the Bulge” as we anxiously waited to watch the ball drop in Times Square. Most years we never made it, as sleep overtook us. 

When my own children were young, we started our own traditions, not quite as calculated, but memorable to our family. After a special dinner and one of Nathan’s favorite desserts, chocolate fondue, we played games, watched movies, and a few years even documented the previous year. We always allowed the kids to stay up late, and turned the T.V. to the channel that would display the dropping of the ball at midnight. I still remember the first year they actually stayed awake long enough to usher in the new year and the realization that the ball-dropping event wasn’t quite as dramatic as they’d hoped for.

So many of us look at the new year as the perfect time to create resolutions, with great intentions. But statistics claim that 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail and volumes are written by “experts” who try to help people make realistic goals and keep them.

In a recent phone call, my father shared something interesting with me. Back in 1729 at Oxford University, John Wesley started a “club” of men who wanted to be accountable to each other in their spiritual walks. Each day as part of personal devotions, they read through twenty-two introspective questions that Wesley had written. It seems that a list of questions might be more useful to me than making resolutions for the year. Wesley’s questions reproduced below, are excellent, and challenged me to contemplate and create my own list of questions. I encourage you to read these, reflect on them, choose the ones that might relate to your life, and add your own.

Wesley’s:

Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?

Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?

Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?

Can I be trusted?

Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?

Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?

Did the Bible live in me today?

Do I give it time to speak to me every day?

Am I enjoying prayer?

When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?

Do I pray about the money I spend?

Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?

Do I disobey God in anything?

Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?

Am I defeated in any part of my life?

Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?

How do I spend my spare time?

Am I proud?

Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?

Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold resentment toward, or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?

Do I grumble or complain constantly?

Is Christ real to me?

Knowing that God is in control of the world and the future, brings me comfort. It remains to be seen what 2021 will bring. But whatever is ahead of us will come as no surprise to Him.

I strive for the unshakable faith of the Apostle Paul and the goals set forth so eloquently in chapter three of the Book of Philippians. As I wake up each new day, I hope to remember that this world is not really my home, but a place of preparation for eternity. What a day that will be when I finally see Jesus and am reunited with Nathan, my mom, and so many, many others that I long to see!

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;...” Philippians 3:20